Andrea and Jeremy Waterbury. Andrea was happy to donate a life-saving kidney to her husband in April.

Jeremy Waterbury knows his wife, Andrea, is the best thing that ever happened to him.

“And that was before she gave me her kidney,” he says.

The Waterburys and their friends will be among the hundreds of people strolling through Audubon Park Sunday morning, Nov. 4, at the 11th Annual New Orleans Kidney Walk. For them, it will be personal.

“As of today, Team Waterbury has raised $815,” Jeremy says. “Last year I couldn’t do the walk because I was on dialysis.”

In April 2011, when the young couple moved to New Orleans from Michigan so Jeremy could work on film production in south Louisiana, they had no idea the journey they were beginning.

“Last year, when he was working on a movie in Baton Rouge, Jeremy started getting some really bad headaches, and I told him to go to the doctor,” Andrea says.

The next thing she knew, he was in a Baton Rouge hospital. The headaches were caused by his sky-high blood pressure, and the high blood pressure was due to his kidneys shutting down.

“We found out they were functioning at less than 10 percent,” Andrea says.

They learned that Jeremy had IgA nephropathy, also called Berger’s disease, a disorder that causes antibodies called IgA to build up in kidney tissue. It was a total surprise. He was 29, and until the headaches started, he had felt perfectly healthy.

“It was two days before I realized how serious it was,” Andrea says. “They were talking doctor-speak at the hospital. They were telling me numbers I didn’t understand.”

11th Annual New Orleans Kidney Walk

What: The National Kidney Foundation of Louisiana’s 2.2 mile stroll that raises money to fight kidney disease through prevention, advocacy and education. Includes food and fun for the family with special activities for children. People can walk individually or form teams.

Cost: No registration fee. Event is a pledge walk. Raise $100 in pledges to get a T-shirt.

Details: For more information about kidney disease, free KEEP screenings or the Kidney Walk, visit kidneyla.org or call 504.861.4500.

After a week in the hospital, Jeremy came home to New Orleans in early October 2011 and went on dialysis three days a week for nearly four hours each time. He had to quit the movie he’d been working on and learn how to navigate the Medicare system. He had to face the fact he needed a kidney transplant.

“He went onto a national registry list right away, and they started looking for a live donor,” Andrea says.

It was a scary time for both of them.

“But our faith and our love for each other just grew stronger,” says Andrea, a fitness manager at the fitness center for Capital One Bank employees.

The dialysis made Jeremy feel exhausted all the time, and Andrea decided to be tested to see if she was a match. She was young and in good health, and she had no qualms about giving him a kidney.

“I never imagined my wife would be the donor,” Jeremy says. “But she didn’t even flinch at the idea.”

It turned out she was a match, and the transplant was done at Ochsner Medical Center on April 2.

“Ochsner Hospital was fantastic,” Andrea says. “The transplant coordinator was always available to answer any questions or concerns we had. We couldn’t have asked for better service or support through it all. We’re very thankful we ended up there.”

Andrea was back home less than 24 hours after the transplant and back at work three weeks later.

“I am so grateful I was able to give this gift to my husband,” she says. “It’s an amazing experience to know you’re giving someone a second chance at life.”

The Kidney Walk aims to raise awareness about kidney disease and raise money to fight it.

“Jeremy was lucky because his wife was a match,” Torie Kranze, CEO of the National Kidney Foundation of Louisiana, says. “That’s highly unusual.”

The average wait-time to get a cadaver kidney is five to seven years.

“We educate people about becoming organ donors and telling their families they’ve signed up,” Kranze says. “If your family doesn’t know you feel really strongly about being a donor, they can override your wishes.”

There are more than 90,000 people waiting for a kidney in the United State, and 1,644 of them live in Louisiana. And some 400,000 people in Louisiana have chronic kidney disease because of high blood pressure and diabetes.

“The funds we raise go to help promote organ donation and to hold a summer camp for children who have kidney disease or who’ve had a transplant,” Kranze says. “They also go toward the free screenings we do all across the state.”

Anyone who has high blood pressure, diabetes or a family history of kidney disease should get a kidney screening.

“It’s called the Kidney Early Evaluation Program, or KEEP,” Kranze says. “We also educate primary care physicians and nurse practitioners. They need to tell their patients, ‘You’re going to end up on dialysis if you don’t take your blood pressure medicine.’”

When Kranze met Jeremy last year, she was impressed by his positive attitude.

“He was young and so eager to learn the whole process and be proactive,” she says.

Jeremy is looking forward to Sunday’s 2.2 mile walk in the park.

“I’m doing great. I feel really, really good,” he says. “I’m glad to be able to tell my story.”

He is back to work in a movie production office now, making travel and lodging arrangements for cast and crew members. And he is grateful to be healthy and employed again.

“The whole time we were going through everything, Andrea and I said, ‘Yeah, this is a total bummer,’ but our faith helped us get through it, and so did all the support we got from our church and friends and family,” he says.

There’s only one problem now.

“I can never tell my wife ‘no’ anymore,” he says, “since she gave me one of her organs.”